A bit of a whimsical set of thoughts this time on something we noticed while out in Florida. I thought at first that it was merely to do with being at Disney, but I observed it away from the resorts as well: that the Americans we met seemed to be censoring their own swearing.

I always though it was a feature of television shows that people cut off phrase or substituted words – certainly we stood out as moderately sweary Brits, even if the people around us didn’t quite understand what we were saying, and that we tried not to actually mentally scar any children.

But no, a man who got water down his neck resorted to “sonofa-” and I heard any number of variations of “holy moly”, “darn it”, “gosh”, and even “heck”.

Were all these people starring in their own shows, as we all are prone to believe? There didn’t seem to be any forcing of language or phrases, as I might expect of someone trying to change the sentence mid-flow.

It did make me appreciate just how sweary British daily life is that I’m more taken aback by a lack of swearing than its presence. But hey, I work with the public, so make of that what you will.